Numerical Analysis of TGU Windows Under Blast – GLASS-SHARD Outlook

The analysis of load-bearing capacity and the determination of blast protection levels for ordinary glass windows and façade components in buildings is known to represent a design and research issue of crucial importance. In the same way, reliable methods to address this issue are mostly based on cost and management expensive experimental investigations on full-size samples. According to the tendency of recent years, this paper presents some of major outcomes of Finite Element (FE) numerical methods and simulations that have been explored in the framework of the GLASS-SHARD research project for glass windows and facades under explosion or soft-body impact. The attention is focused on the analysis of a Triple Glass Unit (TGU), so as to address the blast performance of a rather ordinary glass window for buildings characterized by the presence of multiple laminated glass (LG) layers, on one side, and by the presence of two interposed gas cavities. The TGU blast performance is investigated in terms of load-bearing capacity of single components, with respect to variations in the input blast loads (stand-off distance R, charge W, etc).